Insisting That Truth
Must Always Be Honored
Is Fair
Adamantly Claiming You Know All Truth
Is Not
The Bible makes a very curious statement in 1 John 4:1.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God.
It’s not just curious. It also sounds a bit weird.
Weirdness aside, though, we shouldn’t pass over it too quickly or casually. We’re told to do the test so we need to figure out what it means and how it’s done.
What The Test Implies
At the very least, the need for a test means we cannot walk around thinking we have everything figured out, that there’s never going to be a time when we have all the answers much less know all the questions.
Knowing Jesus gives us a great deal of confidence (and security) but it doesn’t make us all-knowing. The confidence He gives is great but daily living is still an unmapped journey. Faith is simple but should never be simple minded. We still need to pay attention.
Large ships navigate from one port to another over thousands of miles accurately because they trust their navigational instruments. But trust doesn’t mean they turn instruments on and take a coffee break till they arrive. They constantly monitor the situation 24/7, and make adjustments as needed (and they are always needed), until their destination appears on the horizon.
John is telling us to watch where we are going, to pay attention. God is leading. We are following but following requires an intentional, intelligent awareness of where we are in relation to where we’re going each and every day.
The Test Helps Us In The Messy Points Of Life
Rahab told a lie and God blessed her for it. David ate the shewbread and lied to the priest. Moses murdered an Egyptian guard. Everyone I know argues that Moses was getting ahead of himself, and that is probably true, but I can’t imagine any other scenario in which he could get where he needed to be and learn what he needed to learn if he hadn’t done what he did.
One thing is for sure. Life is messy and testing the spirits helps us make thoughtful decisions in messy situations.
In spite of Moses’ murderous response, he was honored and used by God. That doesn’t mean God approved of his actions but it does indicate that God uses the best He can find even when the best is not the shining example we wish for.
Looking back, we might say the choices in each case were obvious, that they had no other reasonable option but dismissive responses miss an important point. These were emotionally turbulent moments. Each one was going against the accepted order and knew there could be serious consequences.
I believe theses situations are exactly what 1 John 4 is aimed at.
The Test Involves Spirit Or Attitude
In order to get this right, we need to talk about spirit. What is John referring to?
He can’t mean God’s Holy Spirit because God is not to be tested and it was John who made the point that the Holy Spirit is both our companion and teacher. We follow, listen to and learn from Him.
John also speaks of the spirit in the plural sense meaning there’s more than one spiritual influence. In fact, every person who speaks to us influences us spiritually. Spirit can also refer to mindset and there are many of those too.
A person high in spirit is full of energy and motivates us to act. A person low in spirits is depressing and we avoid them.
We’re all expressing ourselves spiritually. We must make a difference between the right spirit and the wrong spirit.
I doubt John is focused on the community of spiritual beings otherwise known as demons. I’ve never visually observed or audibly heard any. I know they exist and they have influence but I also know, based on Job’s experience, that God limits the extent to which they can use their superior powers against us.
But there is one way in which I believe we can define spirit as John used it here.
Humans are spiritual beings. Not spirit beings but spiritual beings. We aren’t just spirit. We have both a material and immaterial nature: body, soul and spirit. The spirit is what provides a sense of morale. Humans believe things and dedicate themselves to ideas and purposes beyond the basic need for nutrition and community. We have instincts but instincts are secondary to human nature.
Animals believe things too but their beliefs are situational or circumstantial. When it’s raining, they believe they need to find cover. When it’s cold, they believe they need to find warmth. When they’re hungry, they believe food is needed.
Animal beliefs are physical, not philosophical.
The things we truly believe (the philosophical) give direction to our actions. A good question to ask before taking action is do I really believe this or am I acting on what someone else believes.
Every person who teaches from the Bible adds their spirit to the text. Whatever attitude they entertain is integrated into what they understand the text to mean and that attitude predominates. More than the meaning of the words or the context, the attitude sticks.
A negative attitude spreads negativity. A positive attitude is more uplifting. An insecure person makes us unsteady. A demanding attitude is threatening and so on.
Does the speaker really love lost souls or do they just love to bash the sinful.
The Test Isn’t About Wolves
The important message about the test John mentions is focused on the people we’re listening to. These people are telling us what to believe and John is instructing us to test what and how it’s being said.
The passage actually says that the wrong spirit is promoted by false prophets (preacher-teachers) and John says there are many of them. John gave us these warnings relatively close in time to the resurrection of Jesus, probably within 50 years. If the problem was prevalent that early in history then we can expect it to be even worse now.
Also, false prophets aren’t necessarily trying to deceive. John isn’t focused only on wolves in sheep’s clothing. For some, that may be true but others may be false simply because they are wrong. Sincere, maybe, but wrong.
Sincere people are not wolves but Sincerity doesn’t make anyone right either.
The Test Is Needed Because Nothing Is Obvious
Though prevalent, there is nothing that makes these false prophets obvious, especially the ones that are sincere. Any person who really believes what they’re selling can sound very convincing.
We won’t always see these people coming. Recognition is a skill we must develop, hence the test. If they were obvious, we wouldn’t need to do a test. We’ll have to dig below the surface. They won’t be displaying a gang tattoo or wearing the tee shirt.
The point here is that this test requires more than the naked eye. In fact, if we judge by external appearances we might get it wrong both ways: Good spirits judged as bad and bad judged as good.
The Test Involves More Than Content
The Bible does mention content.
Any spirit that professes that Jesus has come in the flesh is from God. Any spirit that denies the coming of Jesus is not.
We might call that the content test. In other words, the message itself is accurate but is that enough?
The Test Addressed Christian Confusion
Most Christian organizations believe Jesus came in the flesh from God but they differ so drastically in other ways it would be impossible to unify their various beliefs into one system.
The Catholics teach many things that most believers can accept. They believe Jesus came in the flesh. They teach He was conceived in the virgin Mary, came from God and was God.
But all the other things they teach are drastically different to other churches. They pray to Mary, believe marriage is necessary for salvation and there are many other divergent ideas promoted by the Catholic catechism.
Making things even more confusing is the fact that many other church groups teach equally weird and divergent ideas.
Trying to determine which one is right is where the test comes in but the test is often done by taste or visual appeal. If the tester likes someone or some thing, they go along with the program.
The Test Is Focused On Christians
As a first step, there is a simple rule to follow in making the test.
In God we trust. In Christians we don’t.
We should never assume that being genuinely Christian makes one right.
There are two questions we need to answer. Is the teacher really a Christian and, if so, do they really know what they are talking about? Accepting Christians as Christians is one thing. Accepting them as trustworthy teachers and guides is another.
The Jesus-In-The-Flesh test isn’t as conclusive as it may seem. It’s not as simple as true/false, Yes/no or fill in the blank.
Many people talk about Jesus. He’s well known, but not every person who mentions Jesus, even in respectful terms, really believes.
It’s not easy to deny Jesus entirely. There’s too much evidence, but you don’t have to disprove Jesus to deny other aspects of the faith.
And, as I’ve already argued, even people who sincerely believe in Jesus can easily get the message and the attitude wrong.
So John didn’t stop there.
He gave us two additional tests by which to qualify the spirits that commingle every day.
One is the test of love and the other is the test of fear.
The right spirit encourages love and allays fears. Let’s talk about each.
The Test Is Looking For Love
The fourth chapter of 1 John has twenty-one verses. The first six verses focus on the idea of testing the spirits and, broadly speaking, the test is focused on one simple truth: Jesus coming in the flesh.
The spirit that says Jesus Christ (the Messiah – not just a person named Jesus) came in the flesh is from God. The spirit that denies his coming in the flesh, even if He is recognized as a historical fact, is not from God.
But only six verses are dedicated to that idea.
There are fifteen more verses in this chapter and that is where we find the additional qualifications for the spirits that confront us.
Of those fifteen verses, fourteen are devoted to the concept of love. This is not a new concept for John. He mentions love often. In the Gospel of John he quotes Jesus commanding us to “love one another” and he repeats that refrain in I John several times including chapter 4.
In John’s thinking, this is an important idea. We mustn’t pass over it too quickly.
The Test Looks For Humility
God is Spirt and humans are spiritual beings. Our spiritual nature is what enables us to relate to God.
In fact, Romans 8:6 refers to “the mind of the spirit” and that mind (thinking, mindset or attitude) is what John is focused on here. He’s not talking about creepy mysterious beings interjecting ideas. He’s talking about people teaching and interacting in spiritual ways around spiritual topics.
Because we are spiritual beings, we teach, think and act in spiritual terms and the evidence we’ve been effective is how many people believe what we’re saying or at least listen.
Belief is important. What a person believes carries great weight. Beliefs compel us to act even if what we believe is wrong.
There are many ways to define and explain the meaning of “Spirit” but one important observation, and the thing John is focused on here, is that humans also have a mindset that is motivated and expressed spiritually.
So what mindset qualities should we look for? Curiosity, humility and openness are a few that come to mind. A demanding mindset, one in which a person claims to be absolutely right and demands absolute compliance, may not be the right spirit.
Truth is always truth and being adamant about honoring truth is fair. Claiming that one knows all truth absolutely is not. The difference between the two is humility. Any attitude that lacks humility is not the spirit you should be following.
The Test Looks For The Fruit Of The Spirit
One question that arises when we talk about love is how do we express it. What does it look like? How does it feel when we apply this rule?
Those aren’t easy questions to answer because love is treated like a touchy-feely issue on the one hand, something mostly for girls, so we try to masculinize it. Others act like it has no boundaries. Forbearing discipline, for example, is not a loving way to raise children.
What is the balanced approach? The Bible helps us out here.
The Test Respects The Nature Of Love
In Galatians 5, Paul mentions what he referred to as the fruit of the Spirit. There are nine in all.
- Love
- Joy
- Peace
- Patience
- Kindness
- Goodness
- Faithfulness
- Gentleness
- Self Control
This list has been discussed and analyzed to the extreme. I won’t do that here but I will say that all of the qualities are characteristic of a proper spirit. The person sharing the message and even the message itself will be tempered by these qualities.
The nature of the person talking about Jesus should reflect these qualities and the meat of the message should encourage the same sense in those who hear it.
The test we should apply to any and every spirit (attitude, mindset) is ask ourselves what qualities are being expressed or encouraged by this spirit? Is the speaker showing love, joy, peace and does embracing the message fill one with the same qualities?
To put it differently, is the teacher offering to be patient with those who disagree? Are they demonstrating self control or are they lashing out? Is their peace one-sided. In other words, is peace possible only when their ideas are accepted? Is their understanding of the Bible considered absolute or will other points of view be entertained?
The teacher who insists that their point of view is the only possible point of view isn’t loving God or their hearers. They are loving their ideas, which is really more self love than anything else.
The Test Involves The Two Sides Of Love
I once made the point that love has never been effectively expressed unless and until the object of that love feels loved. It isn’t enough for you to say you loved someone. The person being loved must also agree.
I might give a gift to my wife or my child which I think is a loving thing to do on my part. A piece jewelry for her, a baseball glove for him but gifts don’t always hit home. The thought behind the gift is valid only if it’s genuinely thoughtful.
What if my son hates baseball? What if the wife wanted blue gym stones instead of green and their likes and dislikes were known beforehand in both cases. Not only would those gifts not express love, they could be perceived in many uncomplimentary ways.
When I was young, I wanted to play drums. My Dad sent me for piano lessons. My sister wanted to play guitar. Dad sent her for violin lessons. Do I need to explain why that is dismissive and dispiriting.
If the recipient feels ignored rather than loved, what’s the point? When we are patient with people, they will feel heard. When we are kind enough to allow a different perspective, they feel seen. When we are humble enough to listen without reacting, they will feel safe.
That’s the effect of love and it’s a great test of the spirit.
The Test Involves Fear
But what about fear? John mentioned that too.
Fear, like love, is common to us all. Love motivates us to embrace things. Fear is crippling. The test is simple.
Is what I’m hearing liberating or does it stifle, restrict and choke. Am I free act or afraid to act.
Fear can be studied from many different angles but in 1 John it is to be cast out, not entertained. A healthy fear may motivate us to avoid dangerous things or at least approach them cautiously but this test is different. Fear has no part. It is to be cast out because it cripples us and induces a state of inaction.
If what you’re hearing makes you insecure, it’s failed the test.
THINK!AboutIt
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